Bottle to his lips his eyes dart quickly to hers at that remark, looking for the gentle tint of amusement that always colours the way she teases him. He can't help but smirk into his drink. How it is he feels like he's won something when she's mocking him? He'll never know.
"I was hopin' you wouldn't put me out on the stoop," he smiles back.
Sliding easily into her personal space, he pushes her hair out of her face so he can keep track of her eyes. "I ain't in a hurry. And you know all you gotta do is say the word and I'll be back here when you want me."
Jean's fingers tighten a little on the cold glass and the beaded sweat over it as his fingers brush her hair back. Leaving nothing uncovered, the way so much of this does. There's an ache tangled up in that, both too old and too new to have words to explain it. Instead, with her free hand, she catches his hand against her cheek, leaning her cheek into those rough solid ever-steady fingers, even as she didn't look away from his eyes.
{ You think far too highly of my self control where it comes to that }
As always those little touches threaten to burn him if he holds onto them too long, but he can help tempting them all the same. Even now that things aren't so closely guarded the thrill of it is still bright and hot. Partly because she does that to him and partly because even with permission he'll always feel a little like a pauper reaching for the crown.
"You've never much abused it before," smiles, his knuckles grazing her cheek. { No matter how much I'da let you. }
When he steps closer his thumb faintly follows the line of her bottom lip and along side the intensity with which he takes in her features there's something giving him pause now. Something he didn't expect to find there himself.
"This is ok?," he asks as he closes the breath of space left between them to kiss her. "Even here? Even when it's just us?"
His knuckles graze a soft line of warmth across her cheekbone, and she swears she can feel it seeping into her bones, even as he jokes, and she is not sure she is. At least not entirely. That part of her he'd always taunted her as existing, the part that wanted him, beyond the control of her carefully constructed world. The thing she couldn't have. But wanted all the more for it.
That was this, too. The want to press a button because she could. Because some part of her, long kept waiting, wanting, wanted that proof. Even when the logical part of her knew she didn't need it, and he deserved a world better than he'd ever gotten. To never have that willingness abused.
Her eyelids flickered briefly toward closed as her heart gave a sudden loud beat, stomach tightening, at the thumb that brushed her lips, and the question was almost cute. Coy and careful and questioning in a way that Logan never is before he's kissing. Before it becomes those other words, her heart missteps at its different, unexpected, confused, bittersweetness.
This request for permission. This uncertainty about allowance without Scott somewhere in this same world. This need to put that into a question, to be sure this isn't wrong somehow. Jean doesn't know when she left her bottle hanging in the air, but both of her hands are in his shirt, and the only thing she has is pulling him up closer, nodding against her forehead against his. "Of course."
There have always been rules to this— whatever they are— but lately the rules have changed so quickly. So dramatically. He's not always sure what they are anymore and the biggest, and most frightening, difference about it is that now there's perhaps more to lose than ever.
He holds onto her with one hand when she crowds his instep and juggling his drink with the other. Not only does his uncharacteristic reservation dissolve on contact when she hauls him in, but some unseen shield falls with it, like shedding a layer of skin he softens inside and out.
Logan shrugs a guilty shrug. "I ain't read the inter-dimensional part of the handbook," he teases.
There's no resistance, but the flicker of guilt under that same warm teasing makes her pull back slightly. Green gaze taking in his expression, but all of her taking in so much more than that as she realizes it at the same time as she says it in a bare whisper. "You're serious."
It's a question in the form of a statement.
A statement because she knows she's right; a question because she doesn't know why.
The way his head cocks vaguely resembles a confused Labrador Retriever.
"Serious?" he reaches for clarity by retracing the steps that got them here. "About not knowin' how things need to be here? Sure. Serious enough to ask, I guess."
His blunt fingers rake softly down the back of her hand where she holds onto his shirt. "Get the feelin' this is one of those— I shouldn'ta had to ask, situations. Is that it?"
Logan fingers are soft on her hand, and in some part she appreciates that, but in another she knows that's still a handhold to a second ago. To lightness. A willingness to let it slide away with another light set of words. But her eyes don't leave his and she doesn't pull away any further.
{ No. }
If was a question worth putting out there, even in passing, it was one that bore asking at all. She hadn't thought to, in this strange and crazy month, hadn't thought that situationally it would change, but that was an assumption all its own, too. Not one she ever put into question or words either.
"We haven't actually talked about it at all, have we?"
"No. But we don't gotta. I don't mean to put that on you. Ain't expecting anybody else to have all the answers." He can live with the chaos. In a lot of ways that's more familiar than not. What keeps him a little uncharacteristically tentative though is the unshakable feeling that he'll be the first one to get it wrong.
"You know, Parker. I run into him. He's the same Pete from home too. From the same place as us, but. Just a different time. A different moment. It had me thinkin' if you and I are like that too. Because where we come from, even being a day or so off could mean... a world of difference."
The speed at which mutants have adapted has always been more intense than most people, but lately he's been feeling those leaps and bounds like never before. When the idea crossed his mind that she might be just minutes before or behind the world he knows, assuming too much started to feel unwise.
"But here we are," he smiles. His easy grin returning. "Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades."
"Closer." Though the low note in that word is at once a little too light and a little too warm, and it's maybe a little too much more just about that fact they are this close physically, more than a commentary on those specific words. For the space of those syllables, she lets herself have it. Then.
"You're not putting anything on me. It's—" Jean's shoulders give a little raise like it might have meant to be a shrug, except they pause and lower again, as evenly. Her gaze shifted to one side and back. "— just us."
Because Scott still isn't here, and she's never quite sure if it's the thought of that by itself or what Scott might be doing because they'd both vanished entirely for a month, that might be worse. "So it is up to just us to decide what that means."
Beat.
A little more self-consciously than average: "If something needs to change."
He chuckles warmly and lets his lips just scarcely graze hers before he kisses her. It's not the first time he's done it. And every time it feels just a little like he does it just to remember all the times he'd gotten that close and no farther.
"I ain't looking to change nothin'. I just got even more than I'd bargained for," he assures. It's true too. The words are nothing if not genuine. But he knows she might suspect him of being withholding.
{ I ain't tryna claim any more than I been given, Jeannie. Not here, or home, or any place. Whatever feels right. That's what I want. }
It's easy to lose herself for a moment in the kiss, and maybe that's its own ballast. They aren't having this conversation across some space, even a few feet. She doesn't have to find a way to cross air that builds that has net itself into walls. (She doesn't have to pretend she doesn't need it just as much. The physicality of it outside her own breath, thought, words.)
Her head shakes slowly, barely. { More isn't what I worry about. }
Isn't that the irony? There were years and years that his bravado had demanded more, but across that line, 'more' was hardly the issue or his far deeper expectation of being over it. Maybe it's what pushes it to stay in words, quiet but certain, and spoken. Careful in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with being one of the few people who knew how fragile certain things could be, no matter how the appearance might be the opposite in his actions, his words, his rusty, gruff, disregard.
"You don't get less because we're stuck here." She rested her forehead down against his lightly, hands flattening against his shirt, the drum of his heartbeat not far from one of her palms. "Not because Scott isn't, and Krakoa isn't, or even because you might not stay right here any more than you did at home."
Hearing as much feels like a needless reassurance once the words are past her lips. He should have known and any doubt was just insecurity in them. Or this new place. Or both. When dwelling on it any longer only threatens to damage his well guarded pride he nods gently under the touch of her head against his own.
"Just like home then," he chuckles quietly. So far it doesn't exactly feel like home, but having her here does help. In fact, it puts him a little in mind of lifetimes he's lived in the blink of an eye elsewhere. A world he shared with Ororo once. The centuries he and Parker saw pass them by. The hope that he and Jean would get theirs some day is a frail thing, but no matter many times its branches get clipped the roots of that idea hold fast in his mind.
"Even if I'm not here here. Call for me. Anytime. You know I'm never outta your reach, darlin'," he promises.
Jean wrinkles her nose at his words, which are in their way the opposite of hers while being the same as them, too. Nothing is like home at all. But he's the closest to it — even when there are several others from home with them here — and she can find some relief, and even appreciation, of that idea mirrored in his thoughts.
There's a vibrant solemness that never leaves her eyes, but she knows that she can't impress her point with words as much as the slow roll of days does. Will. The proof always more viscerally necessary than the promise. Here and there. Even if she wanted to press it, she knows that it wouldn't do what will. Eventually.
The words are a touchstone to carry, but not a hammer that demands acknowledgment. For later, when she isn't there, when she can't say them.
So her tone shifted, if not quite her expression entirely, "You say that but all I'm picturing is how annoyed you'll be when I page you halfway around the world at 2 am with a need to know where the best Japanese food you've found is, and whether you can bring it to me, so I don't have to get out of bed even."
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metaheroes | LOGS
no subject
"I was hopin' you wouldn't put me out on the stoop," he smiles back.
Sliding easily into her personal space, he pushes her hair out of her face so he can keep track of her eyes. "I ain't in a hurry. And you know all you gotta do is say the word and I'll be back here when you want me."
no subject
{ You think far too highly of my self control where it comes to that }
no subject
"You've never much abused it before," smiles, his knuckles grazing her cheek. { No matter how much I'da let you. }
When he steps closer his thumb faintly follows the line of her bottom lip and along side the intensity with which he takes in her features there's something giving him pause now. Something he didn't expect to find there himself.
"This is ok?," he asks as he closes the breath of space left between them to kiss her. "Even here? Even when it's just us?"
no subject
That was this, too. The want to press a button because she could. Because some part of her, long kept waiting, wanting, wanted that proof. Even when the logical part of her knew she didn't need it, and he deserved a world better than he'd ever gotten. To never have that willingness abused.
Her eyelids flickered briefly toward closed as her heart gave a sudden loud beat, stomach tightening, at the thumb that brushed her lips, and the question was almost cute. Coy and careful and questioning in a way that Logan never is before he's kissing. Before it becomes those other words, her heart missteps at its different, unexpected, confused, bittersweetness.
This request for permission. This uncertainty about allowance without Scott somewhere in this same world. This need to put that into a question, to be sure this isn't wrong somehow. Jean doesn't know when she left her bottle hanging in the air, but both of her hands are in his shirt, and the only thing she has is pulling him up closer, nodding against her forehead against his. "Of course."
no subject
He holds onto her with one hand when she crowds his instep and juggling his drink with the other. Not only does his uncharacteristic reservation dissolve on contact when she hauls him in, but some unseen shield falls with it, like shedding a layer of skin he softens inside and out.
Logan shrugs a guilty shrug. "I ain't read the inter-dimensional part of the handbook," he teases.
no subject
It's a question in the form of a statement.
A statement because she knows she's right;
a question because she doesn't know why.
no subject
"Serious?" he reaches for clarity by retracing the steps that got them here. "About not knowin' how things need to be here? Sure. Serious enough to ask, I guess."
His blunt fingers rake softly down the back of her hand where she holds onto his shirt. "Get the feelin' this is one of those— I shouldn'ta had to ask, situations. Is that it?"
no subject
{ No. }
If was a question worth putting out there, even in passing, it was one that bore asking at all. She hadn't thought to, in this strange and crazy month, hadn't thought that situationally it would change, but that was an assumption all its own, too. Not one she ever put into question or words either.
"We haven't actually talked about it at all, have we?"
no subject
"You know, Parker. I run into him. He's the same Pete from home too. From the same place as us, but. Just a different time. A different moment. It had me thinkin' if you and I are like that too. Because where we come from, even being a day or so off could mean... a world of difference."
The speed at which mutants have adapted has always been more intense than most people, but lately he's been feeling those leaps and bounds like never before. When the idea crossed his mind that she might be just minutes before or behind the world he knows, assuming too much started to feel unwise.
"But here we are," he smiles. His easy grin returning. "Close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades."
no subject
"You're not putting anything on me. It's—" Jean's shoulders give a little raise like it might have meant to be a shrug, except they pause and lower again, as evenly. Her gaze shifted to one side and back. "— just us."
Because Scott still isn't here, and she's never quite sure if it's the thought of that by itself or what Scott might be doing because they'd both vanished entirely for a month, that might be worse. "So it is up to just us to decide what that means."
Beat.
A little more self-consciously than average:
"If something needs to change."
no subject
"I ain't looking to change nothin'. I just got even more than I'd bargained for," he assures. It's true too. The words are nothing if not genuine. But he knows she might suspect him of being withholding.
{ I ain't tryna claim any more than I been given, Jeannie. Not here, or home, or any place. Whatever feels right. That's what I want. }
no subject
Her head shakes slowly, barely. { More isn't what I worry about. }
Isn't that the irony? There were years and years that his bravado had demanded more, but across that line, 'more' was hardly the issue or his far deeper expectation of being over it. Maybe it's what pushes it to stay in words, quiet but certain, and spoken. Careful in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with being one of the few people who knew how fragile certain things could be, no matter how the appearance might be the opposite in his actions, his words, his rusty, gruff, disregard.
"You don't get less because we're stuck here." She rested her forehead down against his lightly, hands flattening against his shirt, the drum of his heartbeat not far from one of her palms. "Not because Scott isn't, and Krakoa isn't, or even because you might not stay right here any more than you did at home."
no subject
"Just like home then," he chuckles quietly. So far it doesn't exactly feel like home, but having her here does help. In fact, it puts him a little in mind of lifetimes he's lived in the blink of an eye elsewhere. A world he shared with Ororo once. The centuries he and Parker saw pass them by. The hope that he and Jean would get theirs some day is a frail thing, but no matter many times its branches get clipped the roots of that idea hold fast in his mind.
"Even if I'm not here here. Call for me. Anytime. You know I'm never outta your reach, darlin'," he promises.
no subject
There's a vibrant solemness that never leaves her eyes, but she knows that she can't impress her point with words as much as the slow roll of days does. Will. The proof always more viscerally necessary than the promise. Here and there. Even if she wanted to press it, she knows that it wouldn't do what will. Eventually.
The words are a touchstone to carry,
but not a hammer that demands acknowledgment.
For later, when she isn't there, when she can't say them.
So her tone shifted, if not quite her expression entirely, "You say that but all I'm picturing is how annoyed you'll be when I page you halfway around the world at 2 am with a need to know where the best Japanese food you've found is, and whether you can bring it to me, so I don't have to get out of bed even."